First a note of warning: This is a column that will make you happy never to have attended law school, and it might very well make your head hurt, an irony, considering that what we’re about to discuss is how the law treats states of mind.
Two East Haven cops, David Cari and Dennis Spaulding, will face a jury of twelve in a Hartford federal courtroom next week. They are accused of violating the civil rights of Hispanic persons in East Haven, and will be on public display for more than a month. What you won’t see, what you’ll never see, is the mental state of either...
September 19, 2013
Reason is, and always has been, and shall forever remain, the slave of the passions. And no passion inflames the heart quite like sympathy. We love those with whom we identify, taking their suffering on as our own. Hence, the heartbreaking and enraging quality of photographs of dead children.
Hence the impulse by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to do something drastic to punish Syria for the death by poison gas of 1,400 civilians, including 400 children.
But gratuitous moralism is dangerous, even foolish, foreign policy.
Just who is to blame for...
September 12, 2013
I don’t recall how many years ago it was that I pulled the plug on my participation on the federal Criminal Justice Act panel, but I do recall the cause: The folks administering the program thought nothing of rejecting requests for payment over the most trifling of things. I threw in the towel at the third or fourth request for a revision of a request for payment after a lengthy trial. It made no sense for me to pay paralegals to chase pennies.
I’m now throwing in the towel on the state’s Special Public Defender program, and the cause is identical. After six months of...
September 6, 2013
There must be few things more embarrassing than a policeman’s knock on the door during a domestic dispute. It’s bad enough that you’ve lost your cool and stand screaming at your bride with all the seeming hate you can muster. Your neighbors are now listening — and then the flashing lights of a squad car and the prying eyes of a lawman.
The sparks fly so red-hot in some marital disputes that one of the warring parties sometimes thinks it’s a good idea to call 911. I recall a case years ago in which a husband and wife were warring about whether he’d yet...
September 5, 2013
August 28, 2013
We’re awash in lawyers. There are roughly 40 of them for every 10,000 people in the United States. Connecticut ranks third among the states...
August 28, 2013
POSTED: 08/28/13, 6:09 PM EDT |
We’re awash in lawyers. There are roughly 40 of them for every 10,000 people...
August 23, 2013
It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence. The colonies rebelled and cut loose from England because King George III was...
August 16, 2013
I’ve become preoccupied lately with the education of young doctors. Doctors must be better equipped than lawyers to deal with death and...
August 15, 2013
I’ve long thought the most significant criminal justice reform imaginable would be simple to impose: Require all lawmakers and judges to...
August 8, 2013
The congratulatory phone calls started to arrive before I made it from the courthouse to my car. My client, a physician, had been found not guilty...